For some reason (via usb), the ip address for the intelligent ev3 brick changed from 10.0.1.1 to 169.254.114.96.... I don't know how this happened... when I ping 169.254.114.96 I get a reply, but no reply for 10.0.1.1 - how do I change it back?

That address is an automatically configured "link local" one (google for it). This usually means that there was some sort of problem when initializing the device. Try unplugging the EV3 and reconnecting it. If that does not work, reboot your PC and try again. If things are still not working, check that there are no errors showing in device manager. I assume this worked at some point? If so and the above does not sort it out, then you need to think about what has changed between things working and now.

Hey thanks for the reply. Yeah I'm not sure why it's doing this... I checked device manager, - no problems there apparently. The only thing I can think of that might have somehow changed it was a couple weeks ago when I installed pdaNET for my Cellphone (to share it's internet with my computer). I uninstalled it but still having issues... I'll try a couple other things and let you know if I get it working.

There is a good chance that pdanet may have install some alternate rndis driver or made other changes to your system, how far back did you go with your system restore? You should not need to set a manual IP address, just make sure that the device is set to obtain the address automatically.

I have a similar problem fairly often because the USB cable from my EV3 fits somewhat loosely into my laptop's USB ports. So I changed the IPv4 properties of the RNDIS Gadget's "Local Area Connection 2" so that my laptop has the static IP address 10.0.1.10.

Since I did that WinSCP connects to 10.0.1.1, loses connection, then reconnects very reliably. Eclipse can usually recover from such a dropped connection, but occasionally I have to restart Eclipse.